Heartwarming workplace tales: from Love Hearts to Simon Cowell

It’s that wonderful time of the year when you have to go to a shop and buy a card with hearts on it. As such, Guru has decided to bring his readers two heartwarming stories of love and generosity within the workplace – it was that or some flowers from a petrol station.

Heartwarming story number one features not one, not two, not three, but 66 workplace romances. The workplace in question is the North Derbyshire factory of Swizzels Matlow, the confectionery company that manufactures Love Hearts, among other sugar-based treats. Swizzels Matlow boasts, just in time for Valentine’s Day, that 122 of its 500 workers are in relationships with each other. Obviously all those romance-based sweets have been rubbing off on the employees; Guru wonders how many of the 500 are diabetic. Perhaps Swizzels Matlow could release the data in early November, just in time for World Diabetes Day on 14 November.

Heartwarming story number two involves everybody’s favourite purveyor of terrible TV and music: Simon Cowell. It turns out Simon Cowell isn’t the agent of darkness so many take him to be. As it happens, he’s actually quite nice, as is evidenced by his allowing sound engineer John Hagenstede to accompany Cowell and fellow X Factor judges on a flight from Edinburgh to Luton on Saturday to ensure he could get to the birth of his first child in time. Hagenstede made it, with no time to spare, proclaiming that he’d have missed the birth were it not for his place on the private jet. How lovely. Guru just hopes that Cowell doesn’t expect Hagenstede to do anything too awful in return, such as produce a Matt Cardle record or sit through an Olly Murs concert.

About Guru

About

Guru is Personnel Today's notorious HR commentator. He's been working in HR for far too long and observes every passing management fad with a mixture of anger and amusement. His blog is the one thing saving his long-suffering wife, Mrs Guru, from having to endure too much of his ranting about the big HR stories of the day.